Dell Optiplex 5050MT?

[Flyboy]

Hello,

I am an extreme noob at this. I have never built my own PC, and I am trying to learn the correct terms of things. So I apologize if I say something wrong.

I am a tinkerer and have wanted a way to backup my families precious memories in a reliable and easy method. Other than the 4 random HDDs I have now of course. Also being able to store the movies I have now would be great and hopefully one day I can set up something like plex? Though I have never done that before either.

I know I could buy an expensive system, but I have wanted to save money and gain the knowledge of not buying something pre-built for this. Plus it'd be fun. I found someone selling a Dell Optiplex 5050MT for fairly cheap and it seems like a great base to start with. It says it comes with Intel Core i5-7500 3.4GHz and 8GB RAM, so I know I will meet those specs for Hex OS requirements, though maybe I will get a tad more RAM as I do not want to just meet the minimum requirements.

From what I have found it seems like it comes with 1 M.2 slot and 4 Sata ports.. or maybe 6? So I should be able to buy an SSD as a boot drive and then have some HDDs for my storage, which I think I connect through the SATA ports?

I don't know anything about if they typically have wifi cards or not, but I assume most people are going to connect this via Ethernet anyways, I just thought wifi might be a good backup? or is that pointless?

I also don't know anything about cooling, but I assume whatever the stock one has should be sufficient.

Additionally I think from what I have found that they typically come with a 240W power supply. Is that enough to run 4-6 additional HDDs?

According to Hardware Corner they say that the Optiplex 5050MT comes with the Q270 Chipset. What is a Q270 Chipset? I found on Puget Systems that the Q270 has 6 Sata connectors but on the diagram I attached seems to show only 4?

 

Overall, is there something else I am missing? Is the Processor too weak? Would this make a good setup for Hex OS or should I be looking for something else?

All input is appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

-Jonathan

[ubergeek]

We run the 5050 at work and the one thing that will limit you is the MT case, They dont have much room for extra drives, You might be able to put 2 3.5in hdds inside of the case while using the m.2 sata for the boot drive. If that fits what you are looking for in a build for storage it would run it. For the processor the i7 7500 is not a bad for running Hexos as well as other applications on top of it. The  stock cpu cooler would be fine but it would be best practice to take it off and re-thermal paste it. if you have the opportunity I would look for a full sized 5050 that would give you some more space, the other option is to Frankenstein that motherboard into a more conventional case but that would take some adaptors and rewiring. 

Hope this helps

[Flyboy]

1 hour ago, ubergeek said:

We run the 5050 at work and the one thing that will limit you is the MT case, They dont have much room for extra drives, You might be able to put 2 3.5in hdds inside of the case while using the m.2 sata for the boot drive. If that fits what you are looking for in a build for storage it would run it. For the processor the i7 7500 is not a bad for running Hexos as well as other applications on top of it. The  stock cpu cooler would be fine but it would be best practice to take it off and re-thermal paste it. if you have the opportunity I would look for a full sized 5050 that would give you some more space, the other option is to Frankenstein that motherboard into a more conventional case but that would take some adaptors and rewiring. 

Hope this helps

Yeah, thats fantastic info. I wasnt too sure about the space either, but the MT seemed like more space than the SFF and the MFF. Ill have to see if I can find a full sized 5050, otherwise maybe Ill just have to get creative as I was hoping to have 4 HDDs, but at a minimum 3 would work I think. I need to double check my storage requirements and I know id like some redundancy.

 

Thanks again! thats great information!

[ubergeek]

1 hour ago, Flyboy said:

Yeah, thats fantastic info. I wasnt too sure about the space either, but the MT seemed like more space than the SFF and the MFF. Ill have to see if I can find a full sized 5050, otherwise maybe Ill just have to get creative as I was hoping to have 4 HDDs, but at a minimum 3 would work I think. I need to double check my storage requirements and I know id like some redundancy.

 

Thanks again! thats great information!

 

This full size 5050 is what work used for small site NVR. It had 4 drives in it but in a very crude way, but it worked. Just note there are tons of deals to be found LIKE THIS if you dig and wait for some hardware,

 

[Flyboy]

2 hours ago, ubergeek said:

 

This full size 5050 is what work used for small site NVR. It had 4 drives in it but in a very crude way, but it worked. Just note there are tons of deals to be found LIKE THIS if you dig and wait for some hardware,

 

oh okay, yeah the one I had been looking at is then a full size 5050. So maybe I can fit 4 in there... in a non-standard way.

 

ohh, The Ryzen is a cool one. Ill have to take a look. Thank you!